Retail Industry: Online vs. Traditional

Online retailers dominate media attention

January 2018

The past 10 years has seen a strong shift in consumers’ preferences for using online retailers such as Amazon and Alibaba compared to traditional, brick-and-mortar retailers Wal-Mart and Target and this shift is reflected in media coverage of these companies. Amazon’s steady media growth over the decade has accelerated recently due to coverage drivers such as its annual Prime Day to draw customers to the Amazon.com web site, its own fast-growing products like the Alexa virtual assistant that drives smart speakers like the Echo and its 2017 acquisition of the Whole Foods grocery chain.

Alibaba is gaining traction among non-Chinese media who recognize the growing size and influence of China’s largest online sales platform and they particularly focused their attention on the sales giant in November 2017 when Alibaba set a single-day sales record of $25 billion on the November 11 “Singles Day” sales promotion. Wal-Mart’s volume of coverage has been stable for the much of the past decade, with news about labor issues and environmental policies being news drivers, but the proportion of its coverage compared to the online retailers has shrunk due to their strong growth. Target’s spike in coverage occured in 2014 when news of a massive data breach that impacted an estimated 110 million shoppers during the 2013 holiday period was revealed and led to a class action lawsuit against the retailer that resulted in an $18.5 million settlement in 2017.

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